We had our regatta about two weeks ago and I’m proud to say that my team smoked our competition. By that, I mean we firebombed their boats after the race. How badly outclassed were we you ask. It took us fifteen minutes to get the boat in position to start the race. During the race two seven year olds in a swan paddle boat from Ontario Place passed us. So we did not come away as potential gold medal winners in Beijing.
Later in the evening there was a crew that was short a rower and I somehow got forced into rowing with them. Stupid “Rock, Paper, Scissors”, I always get screwed on that. These guys were a much tighter crew and the pace of the race was faster than what I was used to. I thought my heart was going to explode. The bad thing about not being able to keep up in a boat is that you can’t even slow down. It was like being on a tandem bicycle with Lance Armstrong in the front seat. You would think that with all this speed we would have won the race but no such luck. At least this instructor makes up plausible excuses for our loss. She said that the boat we were racing against drifted into our lane and we had to ease up to avoid hitting them. I’m not sure she knew what was at stake though. The winners of each race got a shiny pin that said “Crew”. Dammit, it still gets my blood boiling when I think how my life would be different if I had that pin. No more, “this is a funeral home you’ll have to put your pants back on” and my lifelong ban from the zoo for feeding the animals . . . to the other animals, would surely be lifted.
This sounds like the start to a joke, but last week I rowed with a blind man, a one-legged man and another guy, who I’m not entirely sure what his problem is but he walks with a limp and seems a little slow; other than the limp though they could say the same about me. These guys were all very skilled rowers and a fun group so it was a good experience for me to row with them. When I went to get in the boat I noticed one of my oar handles had a large dollop of bird poo on it. I thought of switching with the blind guy because it’s not like he’d notice but decided against it. The way we get into the boat is to put one foot in and then ease yourself down while holding onto the dock and side of the boat. The way I get into the boat is to put one foot in and then just kind of flop to my seat. I’m about as graceful as a seal with a faulty vestibular system. It’s a humbling experience to have a one-legged man hop (seriously, I kill me) out of a boat much more elegantly than you could ever hope to do.
